If you want to see something with potential long-term ramifications, compare the 247Sports composite team rankings for the conference for 2017 and 2016. What you’ll see is a widening gap between the top and bottom of the SEC. Some of that is due, obviously, to Alabama’s obscene class this year, but, still, in one year the spread between number one and number eight has gone from a little over sixty points to almost 100. That’s pretty significant in my book.
And it’s not as if the conference as a whole has done a shitty job on the recruiting front. Quite the contrary, as this year every SEC program except for Vanderbilt finished in the top fifty nationally. That’s small consolation if you’re trying to find a way to make it to Atlanta, though.
If you want to get a real feel for how the rich are getting richer, here’s what combining the two years’ total points gets you:
- Alabama — 623.94
- LSU — 579.27
- Georgia — 578.59
- Auburn — 531.24
- Florida — 510.54
- Tennessee — 490.09
- Ole Miss — 488.25
- Texas A&M — 487.13
- South Carolina — 444.60
- Mississippi State — 435.22
- Arkansas — 429.90
- Kentucky — 412.60
- Missouri — 369.43
- Vanderbilt — 335.83
That is one brutal arms race that much of the conference is losing there.
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UPDATE:
Get The Picture 
Georgia has to play annually numbers 4 5 and 6 on that list which seems tough until you realize that the Dogs are 3rd, comfortably ahead of those 3. Development of players, gameplanning, and gameday decisions are all important too, but the fact of the matter is that Kirby starts the season with an advantage in raw athletic talent over all of them, at least among the underclassmen.
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This strengthens my belief that the SEC is becoming ACCish.
There’s the top few teams and then the rest of the pack.
The old adage that the SEC is the strongest conference, “Top to Bottom” is in danger of being lost. I hate that.
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Thank you Alabama. Thank you Nick Saban.
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I just hope we don’t get beat by uT, gt, and Vandy all in the same year ever again! And the way we lost made it worse.
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I’m I the only one who thinks it’s a little fishy for michigan to go into the deepest of the deep south and pull out a few top recruits? When a south GA kid heads to Ann Arbor, it sure makes a person wonder.
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I understand Coach Freeze may be moonlighting as a consultant.
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It would be interesting to hear the kid’s’ reasons. It might as well be another planet from most aspects.
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He is not pulling tons of kids out of the South besides if you are kid who might have a different perspective on like things like this might mean something.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/harbaugh-plans-take-michigans-team-overseas-annually
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He may do well on the field at Michigan but he still has to put up with Prick Harbaugh for 3+ years and endure really crummy winter weather. Odd decision, especially after de-committing. Just glad he didn’t stay in the SEC. I am surprised we missed on him but he seemed cut from different cloth than the group we landed that bonded so well throughout the past year.
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I went to a game in Ann Arbor years ago and can certainly see how some kids might find that an atttractive place to play a game but who in their right mind would look at Harbaugh and say ” I’d love to play for THAT guy”?
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